40 The Environmental Debate
other living things. The idea that humans might
have evolved from a common ancestry with apes
caused an enormous public uproar, whose echoes
can still be heard.
The studies on which these writings were
based constituted the beginning of modern sci-
entific investigation and were the hallmarks of an
era when scientists and talented amateurs formed
a large number of organizations to promote scien-
tific study. While most of these groups—such as the
American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU), organ-
ized in 1883—had a very specific scientific focus,
the most prominent of the American societies, the
American Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence (AAAS), founded in 1848, attempted to reach
out to a wide range of professional scientists and
to establish a recognized forum for them. Many
of the American scientific societies established in
the middle of the nineteenth century, including the
AAAS and the AOU, continue to play an impor-
tant role in the furtherance of scientific research
today.
The Need for Contact with Nature
As the eastern part of the nation became
increasingly urban and industrial, as technology
progressively limited people’s contact with nature,
and as awareness of the natural beauty of the
western landscape gradually filtered into the
national consciousness, American writers and
artists began to idealize the natural world. The
Romantic movement, which developed in Europe
in the latter part of the eighteenth century partly
as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and its
distancing of people from nature, influenced the
depiction of the wilderness by both the Hudson
River school painters [see Document 34] and the
American transcendentalists [see Documents 36
and 44].
Henry David Thoreau [Document 44], John
Muir [Document 47], and Frederick Law Olmsted
and Calvert Vaux [Document 48] were among
the ardent and eloquent advocates of the need
for people to get away from urban, industrialized
areas and the importance of setting aside space
for this purpose. A recognition of the human need
for nature as well as a sense that open space was
disappearing inspired foresighted individuals to
suggest that land be set aside for parks. Among
the first of these were the painter George Catlin
[see Document 32], the poet and journalist Wil-
liam Cullen Bryant [see Document 37], and jour-
nalist and landscape architect Andrew Jackson
Downing [see Document 38]. Bryant and Down-
ing, in planting the idea for a large-scale public
park in New York City, launched the urban parks
movement, the first concerted conservation effort
in the United States. Cities, states, and the nation
as a whole began to be cognizant of the need to
set aside land for human recreation and spiritual
restoration, as well as to preserve places of unique
natural beauty. Before the end of the century, a
host of magnificent urban, state, and national
parks were created, including Central and Pros-
pect Parks in New York City [see Document 48],
Fairmont Park in Philadelphia, Yosemite Park
(originally chartered as a California state park
but later to become a national park) [see Docu-
ment 45], New York State’s Adirondack Forest
Preserve [see Document 54], and Yellowstone, the
first national park [see Document 50].The Beginning of the Conservation
Idea
As the new century approached, increasing num-
bers of people—primarily wealthy individuals—
became aware that not only were America’s wilder-
ness areas beginning to disappear, but that the wildlife
that inhabited them was also being destroyed. In
1865, fifteen million bison roamed the Great Plains;
by 1885 only about three thousand bison remained in
the United States.
Organized resistance to the wanton slaughter
of birds and mammals and to the destruction of
habitats suitable for fish and game coalesced around
individuals such as George Bird Grinnell and The-
odore Roosevelt who realized that our resources
were disappearing and who had the journalistic or
political clout to effect change. Grinnell started the
Audubon Society in 1886, with one of its goals being
to stop the killing of birds to provide feathers for
women’s hats [see Document 56]. Scientific organi-
zations also actively lobbied at both the state and